1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image processing and, more particularly, to a system and method for expediting the decoding of images having multiple regions with encoded information.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional barcode readers having optical imagers, an image of a target is acquired by an optical imager, such as a CCD or CMOS, and then analyzed to determine whether a barcode is present in the acquired image. Typically, the image is scanned by software programmed into a microcontroller interconnected to the imager to detect the characteristic patterns of a one or two dimensional barcode. Unfortunately, when the acquired image contains multiple barcodes along with other information, conventional decoding processing is not able to expeditiously locate and decode the encoded information as the entire image much be searched and processed in order to locate and decode the requisite information. In fact, conventional barcode decoders will only locate and decode a single barcode in an image. When there are multiple barcodes in the image, the decoder will simply decode the first barcode that it locates. Even if the decoding algorithm is repeated, the decoder may decode the same barcode again or another one in the image, but only one. Thus, repeating decoding operations on an image does not necessarily result in the interpretation of every barcode in the image. In addition, the barcode location process of conventional barcode decoding algorithms is somewhat time consuming and thus is not useful in applications where fast response times are required. This problem is further exacerbated when the image contains additional information of interest, such as a target object to be recognized through machine vision processing, as the image complexity adversely impacts barcode location